Magic Numbers, Part 1
by Gabriel Seraph
Summary: Three numbers come from the Machine, all linked to residents of Portland - Nick Burkhardt, Rosalee Calvert, and Sean Renard. Reese and Shaw split up to take care of all these cases, but soon discover a mysterious supernatural link between the three of them and a fearsome vigilante, Reese's own latent paranormal power, and a secret plan made by Finch. Moderate violence and language.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Evenmoor recently suggested that I write my own PoI/Grimm crossover, and after spending a while thinking, I have come up with a great idea at last. I hope Evenmoor, at least, likes it. Everyone else, if you hate it, then something is terribly right with you.

Logic? I don't need no stinking logic! Sanity-free storytelling, that's the order of the day from me!

R&R and enjoy!

Magic Numbers

Chapter 1

New York City, November 4

4:58pm. Reese pressed his finger to the earwig to accept Finch's incoming call. "Harold. Isn't it just about dinnertime?"

Finch frowned down at his meal. "Why, yes, I was. Ms. Shaw delivered this chow mein and potstickers to me. She says it comes from a very good Chinese place in the city."

Reese smirked to himself. "Let me guess. The chow mein is full of celery, and the potstickers are huge, and all the food is unusually dry for Chinese." It wasn't a question.

"How did you guess?" Finch asked.

"Shaw stiffed you, Finch," said Reese, listening to the other noise in his earwig - a distant chuckling noise as Shaw tried and miserably failed to hide her laughter. "That Chinese food comes from Safeway. I should know, because she tricked me into eating it just last week."

"Oh." Finch was highly disappointed. "Did she now?" He took a bite of large, dry potsticker. "Well, the joke's on her. It's surprisingly delicious." Reese cringed slightly as a yacking sound erupted through the earwig. "Although I can't say the same for Bear. He clearly doesn't approve."

Reese turned and looked at the distantly setting sun. "Well, Finch, I can't imagine you called to chat about this surprisingly mundane culinary discovery of yours. Do you have something to tell us?"

"Yes." Finch put down his bowl of potstickers and moved over to the computer bank at the other end of the room. "Two numbers have just been sent our way. Their names are Nick Burkhardt and Rosalee Calvert. Very unextraordinary people from what I've found. No criminal records, no jobs of any kind involving national security. All they do is run a special exotic herbs and spices shop. Oh. This is interesting."

"What, their spice shop is a front for drug smuggling?" Reese cracked.

"No," said Finch. "It's just, we very rarely get numbers for people outside of New York. These two live clear across the country. Portland, Oregon, to be precise." He paused and took a listen to his landline phone, which had just started to ring. "Oh dear, I think we might have another number."

Reese and Shaw waited for Finch to return with his third number of the evening. "Yes, this is rather odd. Three numbers in one evening, and all are for residents of Portland. The third number is Sean Renard, and he's a police captain."

"Are they all in New York today?" Shaw asked.

"No," said Finch. "Just Renard. As far as I can tell, Burkhardt and Calvert are still in Portland. I'm afraid you two will have to split up for these, the better to keep an eye on everyone involved, whomever they may be."

Reese set off down the street, away from the sunset. "I'll go to Portland and keep an eye on the other two," he said.

"Exactly what I was planning," said Finch. "Shaw, hold the line a moment, I'll get you the location of Renard's hotel room."

While Finch undertook this info-search, Shaw sighed breezily over the earwig, which to Reese meant she could only be extremely pissed and hoping to find someone to knock out with a swift punch to the forehead. "Why do I gotta stay in town?" she muttered.

"Because Finch doesn't trust you to work an op on your own," said Reese. "Relax. You'll still have Bear and Carter and Fusco to assist you if you need them."

"Filthy Delta Bravos," groused Shaw under her breath. "You just wanna make sure I don't go apeshit on anyone, that's it. Right?"

Before anyone could answer, Reese had already cut the connection and hailed a taxi to take him to LaGuardia, and Finch had discovered where Renard was staying today. "The Waldorf-Astoria, Shaw. And get this - I've also found out that Sean Renard is not even his real name. His true name is Johannes Kronenberg, and he's an Austrian national. His brother, Eric, is staying at the hotel with him today, too."

"Austrian national?" asked Shaw. "Then how did he become a Portland cop?"

"I assume their background checks are far less rigorous than ours," Finch said. "And by the way, thanks for the Chinese food, Shaw. It was very delicious, especially considering it came from a cheap supermarket."

"It was nothing," said Shaw, grinning. "Literally." She pressed her earwig to turn it off and began walking down Fifth Avenue towards the hotel.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Portland, Oregon, November 5

8:17am. After a five-hour flight, Reese had landed in a dark, rain-lashed city and immediately taken a taxi to the hotel room Finch had arranged for him. He would spend the night there and go to the spice shop in the morning, when Reese could much more easily play the part of your average customer.

Of course, Reese's shopping list would include stuff that would not be on the minds of your average customer. Unless they were intending to hurt people rather than heal them. Finch had done some research online - specifically, on the website TVTropes, where he found a rather interesting list of herbal ingredients which had been used on the TV series _Hannibal_ to make Will Graham start losing his mind. A fan of the show - Reese had more than once heard Finch imply that he wanted there to be a real-life Hannibal Lecter, an ultimate enemy to challenge himself and Reese and their brand of cold, tough justice - Finch had been shocked to discover these facts during a particularly slow business day, especially since he had missed out on much of this information the first time around.

As he entered the spice shop, Reese reflected on the ludicrous choices of ingredients Finch had advised him to ask about. Would it have been worth it, asking for potential nastiness like that just to have an excuse to come in and clone the phones of Nick Burkhardt and Rosalee Calvert? Reese, in the end, decided the answer was yes. It would have been very amusing to see their expressions as they realized what he, hypothetically, wanted to do, especially if they were, in fact, real herbalists. _Wow, Shaw's sense of humor is starting to rub off_, Reese thought.

"Can I help you?" asked Nick Burkhardt as Reese approached the counter. Reese noted that Nick was a medium-height, medium-build man, pale, with what appeared to be a bad case of Perma Stubble.

"Ah, yes," said Reese, pulling out his phone and keeping an eye on the display out of the corner of his eye. "Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Burkhardt or Mr. Calvert?" He nodded at the shop sign above Nick's head, which read, "Burkhardt and Calvert - Specialty Herbs and Spices."

"It's _Ms. _Calvert, actually," corrected Rosalee Calvert, stepping out from behind a curtain next to the sign. She was a slender, auburn-haired woman, and rather on the tall side for a woman too - she was only about two inches shorter than her partner. "Nick, honey, I'm gonna head out to the port right now to get the dried coffee cherries. You can handle this guy, right?"

"Why not?" said Nick, giving Rosalee a quick peck on the cheek. She emerged from behind the counter and waved good-bye to Reese, who again took a look at the screen of his phone. Satisfied that it had completed the force-pairing process, he pocketed the phone and turned back to Nick.

"I didn't catch your name, sir," said Nick.

Reese pulled the list of herbs from his pocket, along with a second phone for cloning Nick's. "Sorry about that. John Hershey. And you're Mr. Burkhardt?"

"Nick, please," said Nick. "So what can I do for you?"

"I've got a few herbs of a rare and sensitive nature to look for, and I've been told this is the best place to go get them," said Reese. "What I need is - oops, sorry, can't even read my own handwriting." He squinted at his list, even though it had been photocopied from a document written very neatly and precisely by Finch, and held up his phone behind the list so he could watch the display. Once the phone was done cloning, he put it away.

As he did so, he saw something curious happen to Nick. His face shivered a bit and, for a moment, actually morphed into something different. Less human. Animal-like. More specifically, wolf-like. A lesser man might have flinched, or gasped in shock, but Reese was well-trained. He gave no sign that anything unusual had happened before his eyes. In any case, Nick's face soon returned to normal, so Reese decided to ask about it later.

"I'd like to get some rock rose buds and, let's see, aspen leaves." Reese pocketed the list. "Do you have those, by any chance?"

"Wait a second," said Nick. "Didn't your phone used to be in the other pocket?"

"What are you talking about?" Reese asked, while inwardly cursing Nick's observant moment.

"And why do you want rock rose buds and aspen leaves?" Nick asked. "Don't you know those cause nightmares in the right quantities?" He paused, then a look of fear dawned on his face. "Oh God. _He_ didn't send you, did he?"

Reese looked innocently at Nick. "Who's _he?_" he asked, as much to Finch as Nick.

Finch started as he heard Reese's latest utterance. He'd been watching the live feed from the spice shop's security camera, and he realized that the two men's words completely failed to match what their lips appeared to say. Sure enough, as he lip-read more closely, he also realized that the feed appeared to be running on a constant ten-second loop, starting with when Reese had said, "Sorry about that. John Hershey." Cutting to another camera on the outside, he spotted a black car pulling up to the curb, and a pair of men emerging from the same car. Both were wearing long black coats, and Finch could see the unmistakable bulges of assault rifles underneath their arms.

"Mr. Reese, you've got company," said Finch. "And not very friendly, I might add."

"Don't play dumb with me!" yelled Nick. "Tell the truth!" As he yelled, his face morphed once again into the wolf-like image, making Reese wonder exactly what situation Finch had landed him in.

"If I were you," said Reese, "I'd get down. Right now." He vaulted the counter and pulled Nick down beside him, then drew his gun and pointed it at the door. But not quite quickly enough. The two men were already in, and both had opened fire on Reese and Nick. One of the bullets ricocheted off the sign and grazed Nick's arm before Reese could return fire, expertly knocking down both men with shots to their kneecaps.

As the two gunmen groaned in pain, so did Nick, attracting Reese's attention. "Where are you hurt?" he asked.

"Arm," said Nick, now paler than ever, even underneath the extremely thick stubble of his wolf-face. "And it was a silver bullet, too. That's bad news. Come on, get me into the back. I need to fix up my tea."

"Tea?"

"Antidote to silver poisoning," said Nick, cradling his arm and shuddering as his face changed back to normal. "Or any metal, really. Just get in the back with me."

"Who were those men?" Reese asked.

"Monroe's, I'm guessing."

"And who's Monroe?"

Nick groaned as he opened a cabinet in the back room and pulled out a dented steel box. "The Grimm. He wants my blood. Well, you should know, you're a Grimm yourself. Congrats on trying to fool me."

"What's a Grimm?" Reese asked, mystified.

"You mean you don't know?" Nick was equally mystified. "Wow. Here's something you don't see every day." He poured a spoonful of tea into a mug one-handed, then started a kettle going on the stove. "Let me see if I can explain..."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

11:34am. Finch plugged his wireless headphone jack into the computer so he could continue to listen in on Nick's explanation of the world of Grimms and Wesen to Reese while he himself went to the kitchen to make a bowl of spaghetti. Not for himself, but for the special houseguest who was waiting for lunch.

"Ms. Groves?" Finch called as he approached the cyclone fence that sealed Root off from the rest of the Library. "It's lunchtime."

Root perked up and put aside the large hardcover novel she had been reading. "I really need to thank you again, Harold," she said, nodding to the cover, which depicted a gravestone with a white lily laid at the bottom. "These Agent Pendergast books are surprisingly good. I hope you'll buy the next one soon, because I understand it's due to come out in a few days."

"I'm glad you like them," said Finch, sliding the bowl through the slot in the fence. "Don't worry, I already pre-ordered _White Fire_, so whenever the release date is, you'll be getting it."

"Still pretending this is a real working library, are you?" Root asked, taking her spaghetti and starting to eat.

Finch frowned. "Keeping up appearances, Ms. Groves. Keeping up appearances." He spun around and began to limp away, but Root called him back.

"You've made a huge mistake, Harold," she said. "She doesn't like what you did to her."

Normally, Finch's policy was to ignore Root's seemingly-nonsensical ravings about her so-called "God." This time, however, he had a shrewd idea that she knew exactly what she was talking about. Or, at least, she thought she did. He had a long-term plan in motion involving the movement of the Machine, and if Root was really somehow in contact with "her," then..._No,_ Finch thought. _It's impossible._

So this time, he decided to steer the conversation onto a different subject. "You mean Ms. Shaw?" he asked. "She may not be happy about her current assignment, but-"

Root burst into laughter, and surprisingly not the harsh, grating, endless type of laughter typically associated with the mentally unbalanced. "Come now, Harold," she said. "We both know we're not talking about Ms. Shaw."

Finch's eyebrows knitted, the only visible sign that he was rattled. At least, to Root. He knew he was safe because he had done this several times in front of her, and she gave no sign that she'd recognized the fact that a curved beak had grown from his face, and his eyebrows had mutated into long feathery points sticking out from above his eyes at sharp angles.

"Enjoy your lunch, Ms. Groves," he said, turning around again and walking away, for good this time. He shook his head to clear it, and the avian features vanished from his face.

As he returned to the computer and continued to listen in on Nick and Reese talking, Finch's earwig buzzed, signaling that Shaw was calling in. "What have you got, Ms. Shaw?" he asked as he took the call.

"There may be some trouble in the royal family," Shaw commented dryly. "Johannes, alias Renard, and Eric have been arguing ever since I cloned their phone. It's getting tiring, actually. Borderline soap-opera stuff, family drama. The works. 'Course, it's all in German, so even if it were just chatting about their fantasy football leagues it would sound like arguing anyway."

"You speak German?" Finch was impressed, and also a tad bit worried. After all, this was proof positive that he knew a lot less about Shaw than he would have liked.

"And five other foreign languages," Shaw said. "But I'm assuming you don't wanna know about that yet."

Finch nodded, even though Shaw could not see him. "Yes. What about the Kronenbergs?"

"From the sound of it, Eric's got all the money, the inheritance, the title, whatever it is," Shaw said. "Renard, on the other hand, is a bastard child, so he doesn't get jack shit."

"Such is the life of European royalty," said Finch. "Didn't I tell you? These Kronenbergs are one of the old family lines. Older than the Hapsburgs, even."

"But the Hapsburgs haven't had the throne in, what, a hundred years?" Shaw asked. "So what does that say about the Kronenbergs, I wonder?"

Finch got up to go back to Root's cell and collect her finished bowl. Once he was out of her earshot, he continued his conversation with Shaw. "I've been trying to get into their records from Vienna, but my German is pretty rusty. Tell me, what does the word '_Konkurs_' mean? Probably not 'concourse,' even though that's what it sounds like, at least to me."

"No," Shaw said. "It's what they call a 'false friend.' The correct translation is 'bankrupt.' Makes sense. Eric's got claim to all the Kronenberg inheritance, yes, but they're land-rich bankrupt aristocracy without a penny to their name. Heh, like the song."

"What song?"

"It was in a movie somewhere," Shaw said. "Anyway, the point is, Renard got nothing from his parents so he was forced to make his own way in the world, so he has money, and Eric's basically begging him to lend him some to help him out."

Finch rolled his eyes, something he found himself doing quite often on cases involving family drama. "Unless Renard has some kind of sideline we haven't discovered yet, I'm pretty certain he can't really afford to put aside some money for his brother. Not on a police salary."

Shaw sighed. "I bet Reese is having way more fun than I am. How long do I have to wear this god-awful - whoa, someone's shooting!" Sure enough, Finch could hear the sound of gunshots being popped off over the earwig. Shaw raced down the hall towards the source of said gunshots, which was, as she suspected from the second she started hearing them, Eric Kronenberg's room. Pulling out her key (which she'd pilfered from one of the maids so she could enter, disguised as a maid herself, in order to force-pair Renard's phone), Shaw tore in with her gun drawn, then took a second to survey the scene before informing Finch on the situation.

"Eric's dead," said Shaw. "And his brother is in the wind. I hate to say it, but from the look of it, Renard is our perpetrator."

"So it appears," said Finch. "You heard nothing to suggest otherwise?"

"Their argument was getting very heated," said Shaw. "If someone else came in at that point to shoot, it would have been a hell of a coincidence."

"I think you mean 'happenstance,'" said Finch. "You know, 'once is happenstance, twice is coincidence?'" Shaw gave no reaction. "_Goldfinger_? Ms. Shaw, I think you desperately need to start reading more. You do work out of a library, after all."

Shaw exited the room and walked in again, this time letting out a bloodcurdling scream as she got into character as an innocent hotel maid. Under her breath, she told Finch, "I think I might need that extra help after all."

Finch nodded again. "I'll call Carter."

AN: For those wondering about that last line, I began this fic mere weeks before the sudden plot twist of Carter's death (spoilers!) was put into the show. Therefore, it will all take place before the whole "Endgame" trifecta.


End file.
